There has been a strong desire in the art to prepare diamond thin films. This has been due to the desirable physical properties of diamonds such as large band gap, high dielectric breakdown strength, high thermal conductivity, hardness, optical and ultraviolet transparency, and high electron mobility. Heretofore diamond films have generally been prepared by low vapor pressure non equilibrium growth techniques such as hot filament, glow discharge, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and plasma enhanced CVD. These techniques, though capable of polycrystalline diamond thin film growth, are expensive due to the requirement of a vacuum chamber and the associate low throughput. Other drawbacks to these techniques include high power consumption and a high degree of process control.